Did you know there are people out there who give out Chick Tracts instead of candy on Halloween? Yeah, that happens. If we go back to my old neighborhood, I could point out the house that did that to us as kids. He was hated more than the guy who gave out raisins or pennies with needles in them.

Take a gander at the story presented here. You can compare this to the tract itself (no, I am not giving Jack Chick any web hits, so you're safe).

I assure you, the laughable production values pay perfect homage to the source. Consider yourself saved.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Amicus productions put out several horror anthology flicks, and we've got the last weekend of Horvent (my name for the Advent for Halloween) coming up. Maybe you'll have a party. Here are some movies I can suggest.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Apparently, in 2003, this show pegged number 50 in the 100 scariest moments, and when Channel 4 aired the list, the clip (at 1:26:05) was the party from "The House that Bled to Death". I've got to say, that scene made me laugh so hard, I had hot chocolate spiked with rum shooting out of my nose (the rum is what hurt).

Nonetheless, it's a good series with some truly creeptastic moments. And you can get it on DVD. Awesomesauce! It's well worth it.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Yep, we're all about short-lived series over here. Nightmare Cafe is just one of them.

I'v echecked to see if you can get this on DVD, and it looks like it came out once but has since gone out of print. No luck renting that, then! However, if you can stand to watch them in 5-minute bursts, it's on YouTube. I'm not posting links; I'm just letting you know it's out there.

What's really remarkable about the show, besides its short run of five+pilot, is the amazing amount of talent that worked on the show. Having gone through a couple episodes, I don't know why it was cancelled.

This happened to a friend of mine who was working a convention. She was in the middle of breaking down her booth when she saw Robert Englund walking by and mentioned to him that she'd seen Nightmare Cafe and enjoyed it very much. He put his arm around her and offered to buy her a drink. She had to turn him down because she was breaking down her booth.

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Oh, that theme music.... This show always came on in the middle of the night, after my family had gone to bed, so I hardly ever got to share it with anyone.

I discovered this was a common affliction when, in mentioning it to a friend, she exclaimed, "It IS real!" You see, she had never gotten to watch it with anyone else either. It was just one of those things you watched by yourself, in the dark.

George Romero released this on us in 1984. He'd done pretty well with his movie Creepshow and the small screen was a fine way to cash in. The cycle was completed with the 1990 release of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, which featured its own version of the Snow Maiden story (but with gargoyles! What a twist!).

You can actually get all four seasons and the movie on DVD. However...

I do want to share this one with you and it's an awful quality transfer, so I don't feel bad about posting it. This comes with a story:

On one of the extraordinarily rare cases when someone watched this show with someone else (namely, me and my mom), it was an episode with Divine in it. There's his name, right there, in the opening credits.

Mom started laughing. "Divine! Oh my!"

I asked who Divine was. "Oh, you'll see," she said.

So when Divine showed up, my mom said, "Oh," and "That's not right," and "Well, I guess it is him." And when I asked what the deal was, she said, "He looks completely different. Nevermind."

And, yes, that is David Gale, with more than just his head, as the dad.

Funny thing, when Divine says, "Nothing like Tibet! They are Reformed! We are Orthodox!" it just tells me they're Red Hat sect Buddhists, not Yellow Hat. That's a thing. Go look it up.

Thursday, October 03, 2013

There were some stories for the TV Darkroom that were just too...dark? Gorey. Expensive to film. If you'd seen Darkroom, you'll see a lot of the same names attached to this project. Christopher Crowe was all over this baby.

This is not a good movie. It has moments, like the "grasping the areal on the car and then it wiping back and forth" in the first story, "Terror in Topanga", which was cheese blocking but strangely effective.

The second story, "The Bishop of Battle", is the one most folks who have seen this will remember. We were joking about how funny it was that people thought you could make any money as "video game hustler". Well, it was the 80s.

For me, the third story, "The Benediction", was the best. The story-telling is tight enough (in context), and Lance puts on a good show. I love the truck bursting from the ground (thanks for spoiling that, trailer). The story isn't too complex or obvious with where it's going and it resolves as it should.

Ugh! Finally we get "Night of the Rat". This is truly terrible. Fresh off the set of Alien, Veronica Cartwright is perfectly hysterical throughout. Richard Masur is a dickish dad, but I keep waiting for him to burst out with a BOOGEDY!!! ....just kidding..... The monster reveal at the end is of such laughably poor quality that it sucks the drama away and leaves the audience feeling cheated. You want to make rats scarey? DON'T SHOW THEM. Heck, I learned that watching During Barty's Party.

Oh man, Beasts was some actual nightmare inducing stuff. That was a great series.

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

On a whim, I went looking for this show. I hadn't seen it since it first aired, back when I was in first grade, but I remembered it. Oh, but I remembered it...

Surprisingly, there weren't that many episodes. After re-watching the series, I realized that some of these tales were ones I mistakenly thought were Twilight Zone (the 80s version, obviously), or Night Gallery. We'll come back to those shows later in the month, but it's interesting to me how the genre of "thriller" shows all
blend together after a while.

Now, I assure you, if there were any other way to get a hold of this show, I'd provide it. It's not on DVD, so you can't buy or rent it, and that's the only reason I'm willing to post links to the videos themselves. If there's another way, we like to take the legal option.